et tu, Brute

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin et tū, Brūte?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɛt ˈtu ˌbɹutɛ/

Phrase

(deprecated template usage) et tu, Brute

1. "You too, Brutus" or "even you, Brutus"; expression of recognition of betrayal.
   • 1591, Shakespeare (disputed), The True Tragedie of Richard Duke of York, and the Death of Good King Henrie the Sixt, Thomas Millington (octavo, 1595), read in Alexander Dyce, Robert Dodsley, Thomas Amyot, A Supplement to Dodsley's Old Plays, Shakespeare Society (1853) p. 176, [note that although this play is generally believed to be an early version of Henry VI, Part Three, the phrase does not appear in the latter (or in the 1600 edition of the former)]

     Prince Edward: Et tu Brute, wilt thou stab Cæsar too? A parlie sirra to George of Clarence.

   • 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):

     [Casca stabs Cæsar in the Neck. Cæsar catches hold of his Arm. He is then stabbed by several other Conspirators, and at last by Marcus Brutus.] Cæsar: Et tu, Brute?—Then fall, Cæsar. [Dies. The senators and people retire in confusion.]

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     And that is the reason why a young buck with an intelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow one of the saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at him, with an “Et tu Brute!” expression.

   • 2002, Randall (EDT) Martin, footnote in Henry VI, Part Three, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, p. 112,

     But according to the Oxford editor of Julius Caesar, 'Et tu, Brute' had probably already become a popular tag by the time of True Tragedy [see 1591 cite], readily understood by English speakers just as it is today.

   • 2006, Maria Wyke, Julius Caesar in Western Culture, Blackwell Publishing, →ISBN, p. 223,

     "Et tu, Brute?" (3.1.76). This familiar but strange, strangely familiar, anachronistic foreign language at the heart of Julius Caesar is the only Latin in all of Shakespeare's so-called Roman plays.

Usage notes

• Used figuratively from 1591 (sometimes jocularly) to express shock and sadness at the treachery of a good friend. Although apparently an Elizabethan invention, a "genuine antique reproduction" (see Marjorie B. Garber, Shakespeare's Ghost Writers: Literature as Uncanny Causality, Routledge (UK) (1997), →ISBN, pp.54-55) it appears to have been well known in England before its use in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:et tu, Brute.

Translations

expression of betrayal

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: please add this translation if you can

• Danish: et tu, Brute, også du, Brute?
• Estonian: ka sina, Brutus
• Faroese: Eisini tú, Brutus?
• Finnish: sinäkin, Brutukseni
• French: tu quoque mi fili (fr)
• Georgian: შენც, ჩემო ბრუტუს? (šenc, čemo bruṭus?)
• German: auch du, Brutus; auch du, mein Sohn Brutus
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Icelandic: og þú líka, Brútus
• Japanese: ブルータス、お前もか (Burūtasu, o-mae mo ka)
• Kazakh: сен де, Брут? (sen de, Brut?)
• Polish: I ty, Brutusie
• Portuguese: até tu, Brutus?
• Russian: И ты́, Брут? (I tý, Brut?)
• Swedish: även du, Brutus?, även du, min Brutus?
• Turkish: sen de mi Brütüs?

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Danish

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin et tū, Brūte.

Interjection

1. et tu, Brute

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Latin

Pronunciation

(Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /et tuː ˈbruː.te/, [ɛt̪ t̪uː ˈbruːt̪ɛ]

• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /et tu ˈbru.te/, [ɛt̪ t̪uː ˈbruːt̪e]

Phrase

et tū, Brūte?

1. Even you, Brutus?
   And you too, Brutus?

Usage notes

Although the phrase is put into the mouth of Julius Caesar by Richard Eedes, and later Shakespeare, contemporary accounts suggest this is historically incorrect. According to Marjorie B. Garber, Shakespeare's Ghost Writers: Literature as Uncanny Causality, Routledge (UK) (1997), →ISBN, p.54, the 18th century Shakespearean scholar Edmond Malone wrote that it was used in a Latin play (since lost):

1582, Richard Edes ^[sic], Epilogus Caesaris Interfecti.

(According to George Steevens, another 18th century Shakespearean scholar (read in A. Chalmers, The plays of William Shakspeare, printed from the text of the corrected copy left by G. Steevens, with a selection of notes from the most eminent commentators, &c. (1805), p. 244), the play's author was Richard Eedes, based in Oxford and later one of the translators of the King James Bible.)